Shatto's Way Page 3

  He was sitting on the porch soaking up sun and letting his thoughts wander when Jesse came rattling up the lane, probably enjoying the opportunity to drop into four-wheel-drive and bounce around in the cab of his pickup. Toby had expected Holman's arrival. His loop through Liverpool would not have gone unnoticed and Glenna Holman would have been quick to reach the shop and let Jesse know of his return.

  In winter clothing Jesse Holman might have weighed one hundred pounds. Dark, as though stained by the Red Man tobacco he chewed, his even darker eyes claimed attention until he removed his old railroader's cap to disclose a hairless skull as white and smooth as a baby's bottom.

  Jesse had always looked old and years merely seasoned him a little. Facial lines deepened and cords appeared more prominently in neck and arms, otherwise he looked the way Toby had always known him.

  Jesse was George's closest friend and had been informally appointed to take care of things in case Toby was away. You could trust men like Jesse Holman with anything in any amount. Younger generations might be shifty or opportunistic, but the old Perry Countians were as solid as the land they toiled over. If Jesse or others like him said a thing, you could depend on it. If they accepted a man, their homes and hearts were opened, but if you failed to measure up, the doors slammed and faces closed so tightly you could feel frost forming. The Jesse Holman's were good people but it didn't pay to treat them lightly.

  Their talk had always held banter and Toby saw no reason to change now so he said, "Hey, Jesse!" just as though they had recently seen each other.

  Holman left his pickup door hanging open and squatted against a porch post. He spit a brown streak into the weedy yard and managed a slow, "Toby."

  Jesse chewed in silent contemplation and Toby sat for a moment, "Many deer this year, Jes?"

  Holman again spat, this time in mild disgust. "Ain't seen many. Too much doe huntin'. Won't never be like it was till they quit shootin' doe.

  "You get my cable alright?"

  "Yep, and thanks, Jes. An A-rab brought it in on his camel." Jesse squinched an eye suspiciously but said nothing for a moment.

  "We did like your Pa wanted; no viewing and no box. Shipped him down to Harrisburg an' got him back in a plastic vase next day or so. Least we guess it's him in there. Might be some old furnace ashes for all I know."

  "You bring him along, Jesse?"

  "Yep, he's on the pickup seat. Quietest ride I ever had with him." They both half chuckled. "You goin' to spread him on the fields, Tob?"

  "That's how he wanted it."

  Jesse chewed on it awhile. "Well, it ain't a bad way. Your mother's already there so there ain't no special reason to plant him in the cemetery." His chin pointed at the cluttered porch and wild looking fields.

  "He surely left his mark on this place."

  This time Toby did chuckle. "He surely did! The land is probably the richest around and the house is the worst. The barn's drum tight but it hasn't been painted since I can remember. All the buildings are full of old machinery and tools that haven't been used this century. This isn't the usual farm, Jesse!"

  It was Holman's turn to chuckle, "George saw things different alright, but he liked what he was doin' an' that's hard to fault. He left owing nobody, which is better than a lot of 'em I can remember.

  "Your Pa's truck is at my place and I moved his lock box, guns, and some other things over just in case. Can't tell who's roamin' around these days." His eyes darted about as though thieves might even then be lurking.

  "You've been a good friend, Jesse, and I owe you for all you've done. Pa'd probably still be lying out here if it weren't for you."

  The old man discounted any debt. "You don't owe me nothin', Toby. Your Pa and me were friends and friends do for each other. Ain't no more to be said about It.

  "More important now is what you're goin' to do. See you've got a car but the truck'll be more use.

  "Reckon you'll sell the place off. No sense in a traveled man like you sittin' out here like this . . . An' all this stuff will make one mighty fine sale." He paused, lips crimped in dry humor. "'Course, we'll have to grade-up the lane or about the third car in'll get stuck an' that will be that."

  They rose together, both stretching and looking around.

  "Well, this car's rented so I'll get rid of it and drive the truck awhile. I figured on only staying a few days, Jes, but I've got some thinking to do, so I may be around longer.

  "I'll run over to Bloomfield and get the legal work behind. Then I'll start deciding."

  Holman handed him a small cardboard box with hinged and brassy appearing corners embossed on it. "Your Pa's jug is inside, Tob. Want me to stay while you scatter him around?"

  "Not unless it means something special to you, Jesse. I can handle it alright."

  "Guess I'll go on down the road then. Far as I'm concerned George ain't in that bottle anyway.

  "Glenna an' me 're home most of the time so we'll be lookin' for you, Toby. Come when you're ready."

  He rattled off calling back that there wasn't any food in the house but that the electricity was on and disappeared down the lane.

  +++

  His father had often pointed out the places he had scattered his mother's ashes so Toby tried to cover the same spots. It was sentimental foolishness but it still seemed right that man and wife should lie together.

  The Shatto fields grew wonderful harvests. George Shatto had been improving his soil in anticipation of hard times since he had become sole owner of the place. No hot chemicals for him. He manured and turned in woods humus without fail. He rotated crops and spread good natural lime. He paid a man to farm the land because he plowed under most of each crop raised. Fields lay fallow when they should or grew clover when that was right.

  He was so busy planning ahead that he didn't really care how good or bad things were right now. George Shatto's farm really was different,

  Examining the barns and shed filled with used but serviceable things, Toby Shatto could smile at the memories. Many of the items he had helped load and truck home from public sales all over the county and even from Juniata, Snyder, and across the river in Dauphin. Once, the area around Pillow and Lykens had been prime pickings, but eventually the old farms were sold out and the good stuff was gone.

  A man could still buy Hepplewhite and Chippendale furniture as well as the usual dry sinks and dough trays but that wasn't George Shatto's choosings. George wanted hydraulic rams for raising water, old water powered saws or mills, and all sorts of hand driven cultivators, shellers, and grinders. As nobody else wanted the old junk they bought cheap and stored most of it.

  As helper, Toby had been embarrassed by their buying. Their farm seemed more like a junkyard and the whole county knew about his father's crazy ideas.

  As inheritor Toby Shatto saw with different eyes and, burning with a new found belief that his father had been right all along, the collection appeared far less junky than it once had.

  ++

  Chapter 5

  He held off going to the cave until last. Toby supposed he savored it like a choice dessert, knowing its special flavor and almost unwilling to sacrifice the certain enjoyment of it.

  Behind the house, small fields sloped until the rise became too steep and thick woods covered the ridge. It was not a particularly prominent rise but it marked the northern border of Pfoutz Valley. People called it Turkey Ridge and wild turkeys still scratched there. The cave was driven horizontally into the side of the ridge. Toby could not remember all of the names connected with the cave but its history was clear enough.

  About the time of the Civil War someone had begun the cave while searching for coal. A small seam must have been exposed or there would have been no reason to attack the slope at that particular point. Though the coal was soft and of low grade, the seam stayed large enough to tempt further mining in hope that it might widen. Expectation that it would was not unreasonable. Further east the same mountain produced coal in commercial quantities, while a hundred
miles to the west hard coal was being heavily mined.

  That the coal vein ran horizontal and was easily removed was probably an inducement to continue and the miners undoubtedly envisioned breaking into a vast coal deposit whose removal would eventually leave the ridge a hollow shell. The great lode failed to appear and for long times the tunnel lay abandoned.

  The final effort to strike a paying vein had been generated during World War II. Using modern equipment and explosives, tunneling had branched following a number of promising coal seams. None had developed and the frenzied war-induced searching turned elsewhere.

  Years had been kind to the tunnel's portal. 1923 was scratched into the heavy concrete poured to prevent surface material from sliding across the opening, and those long-forgotten masons had mixed well as the portal had withstood cracking or shifting.

  Tailings had been spread below the portal and graded into the normal slope. Decades of disuse had allowed growth, and brush and stunted trees now disguised the fill's origins. Only the old narrow gauge railroad bed remained passable. George Shatto's pickup kept that open making irregular trips to his cave.

  Approaching the cave entrance felt like entering an increasingly narrow valley as small ridges developed on either side before blending into Turkey Ridge. The portal itself stood at a slight angle and was heavily screened by third growth timber. Toby's quiet steps roused a bedded whitetail that risked a long look before slipping away tail down through the undergrowth. Because of the south facing, the sun came early and stayed long and deer had always liked the area for resting.

  The largest padlock he had ever seen secured the cave's heavy steel door. Where his father had found the thing Toby could not remember, but the loop was a full-inch tool-steel rod and the combination boasted five digits. He guessed the lock alone weighed ten pounds. He had often handled the huge lock and wondered how difficult it really would be to force open. Any method would require time and most would be noisy. As far as he knew no one had ever been interested enough to try. No rumors of hidden wealth were associated with George Shatto. The relatively few who remembered the cave at all guessed rightly that George just stored his survival stuff inside.

  Toby had no difficulty with the lock. During a practical moment his father had simply chosen the Millerstown postal zip code for his combination. Toby dialed 17062, administered a powerful tug, and the lock opened. He looped it through the hasp and heaved on the door.

  If George Shatto had not kept his hinges thoroughly greased the door would have been immovable, for if his lock was huge, George's door was a genuine monster. Its tonnage had never been calculated, but the door had been welded together in place and swung on eight welder-fabricated hinges that were supported by foot-long rods bedded within the portal's seasoned concrete.

  Before hanging his door, George Shatto had reduced the tunnel opening so that his pickup could barely enter. Toby could remember the year and the old Dodge that had determined the door size.

  Half-inch boiler plate had begun the door, and that would have been enough for most, but George had added another plate inside and a third outside so that his door swung one and a half Inches thick. There it had hung until the Vietnam fiasco. At a Mechanicsburg Depot surplus sale George Shatto had obtained sheets of armor plate used for pilot protection. Though only a quarter of an inch thick the steel defied drilling so holes were burned through and the armor was bolted to the exterior face of the door. A small view port was also cut through at eye level and fitted with thick plastic. When World War Three began George planned to view the devastation from safety.

  His father had fun with it all, Toby was sure of that. Preparing for the next war had fully occupied George's thought and time since his disabling injury.

  The railroad yards at Enola had killed or maimed its share of workers before George Shatto's injury. The work was often dangerous and always arduous. Railroad materials were large and heavy, and occasionally something went wrong.

  The part that fell on Shatto weighed over a thousand pounds. Because it crushed one hand and most of a leg there was nothing recognizable to reattach. George's wounds were squared off and sewn up at Holy Spirit Hospital. After a time he was fitted with the latest mechanical limbs and issued a monthly compensation check.

  George usually explained it that way and only complained that he surely missed having a knee. If he suffered pain no one heard of it. He made most public sales and until Toby went off to college the two of them did all the loading and unloading. After that George rounded up Jesse Holman when he could and managed alone when he couldn't.

  George's railroad pension required careful spending, but his hobby cost little and his garden provided most of what they ate. George managed well minus a hand and most of a leg and few thought of him as crippled. Toby never had.

  The cave air was fresh thanks to two large ventilator shafts drilled from above, but the smell of the many stored items was still powerful. Toby flicked the electric switch and the cave lit up like a ball field.

  He stood for a long moment taking it all in. The main corridor drove straight ahead for over one hundred feet with a number of smaller tunnels branching off. At its end the corridor opened into a large room with a higher roof. Every wall was lined floor to ceiling with solidly filled shelves.

  Although dust lay over everything, the organization was remarkable. Moving slowly along Toby could read labeled cans and boxes. There was food packed in nitrogen for indefinite storage. Glass containers of whole-grain wheat lined many shelves and he could remember fitting paper cones filled with dry ice over the wheat-filled jars. As the ice evaporated it formed carbon dioxide that sank into the wheat displacing normal air. After sealing, the wheat would remain edible for a thousand years.

  There were other essentials of course. Candles were stored by the thousands, cases of toilet paper (now there was a REAL necessity, he chuckled), water purifiers, hand grinders, medical kits, and matches by the carton, all damp-proofed in wax.

  In one section, a library of "How To" books contained methods for accomplishing about anything known by man.

  George Shatto had truly practiced the Boy Scout rule. He had been prepared.

  Although he had seen it a thousand times before, Toby Shatto was again awed by the accumulation. Considering that it had been assembled over more than a quarter century, the effort involved was perhaps not monumental, but in total, the accomplishment was purely humbling. One man with diligence and perseverance had surely put a lot together.

  Now it was his and that thought was sobering.

  Satisfied for the moment Toby snapped off the light and secured the heavy door behind him.

  +++

  The short drive to Millerstown tugged as much at his heartstrings as had seeing the old farm. The Greenwood school brought a rush of nostalgia, and he pulled up to watch the current football team sweating at their training. God, those had been good times! He and Chop and Fred, Pinky, Chuck, and the rest, they'd worked like flogged mules to be the best they could be. Yet they had lost most games, often by lopsided scores. Greenwood was just too small, and meeting high schools like West Perry head-on usually provided painful experiences. The school had different coaches now but the players looked the same. They had the usual mix of big and small with a few showing talent and the rest just trying hard. He hadn't followed local football for a long time but he supposed the team still took their lumps and kept plugging as they always had.

  Millerstown square was as dead as ever. It's demise had been certain since the new road by-passed the town years ago. Until then a restaurant and a drug store had flourished along with the still struggling market and gas station. It was probably better though. Highway traffic had been gutting the village causing accidents, jams, and frayed nerves. Sure was quiet though.

  He saw Chop Clouser's big frame disappear within the gas station and figured the immense four-wheel-drive pickup with the body jacked a yard or so off the pavement must be his. it was like Chop to drive something with dual rear
wheels, big chrome pipes running straight up behind the cab like a diesel, and of course half a dozen antennas looping around so that the vehicle resembled a mobile TV station.

  Appropriately enough, Chop had a scoped varminter and a shortened-up pump shotgun racked across the cab's rear window. Leave it to Chop to own a real Perry County Cadillac!

  He decided to see Clouser later on. He hadn't a lot of time, and legal work in New Bloomfield was certain to take longer than he expected. He could be sure that George had left his affairs in good order—that was his way—but the lawyer had not yet been trained who could do anything a simple way. Not enough profit in it he supposed.

  He had not lost the certainty that the economy was going to collapse. The knowledge ate at his gut and chewed at the fringes of his thought. He just didn't know what to do about it.

  It was easy to say, "Pull out now. Sell it all, go to Switzerland, or South Africa, maybe." Forget IBM and all that his work meant? Hunt a hole and crawl in—to see everything just keep on churning while he quivered and waited?

  Or ignore it, and keep on course as everyone else did. Until he was suddenly abandoned, jobless and broke in some nowhere like Saudi Arabia? Jesus, what a thought!

  He stayed on old Route 22 down to Newport and crossed the bridge listening to the familiar hum of tires on the honeycombed surface. As a boy he had taken a hell of a spill when his bike tire skidded on that decking and he could still remember how he had seen the water through the steel grid until his face struck knocking him silly and scraping him thoroughly.

  At first look Newport seemed to be thriving. People were moving around the square and most parking places were filled. There were too many empty stores, though, and some of the businesses were surely marginal operations. There was even an antique and collectibles shop. Having one of those in a town square indicated either a tourist village where transients expensively purchased and dragged to their homes most of the junk from yours or, as in this case, a place where rents had become so low that a business could open on a whim, not expecting to earn a living, just something to keep busy and make a dollar or two from.